Dinner and dancing

Cocktails in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Rose Garden Dinner Dance.

The New York Botanical Garden’s annual Rose Garden Dinner Dance was two weeks ago today (September 20) at the Botanical Garden. The evening began with cocktails in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, and was followed by dinner and dancing on the Garden Terrace.

Social events at the Botanical have a bit of a different quality, perhaps because they are out of Manhattan (in the Bronx). There is something more naturally elegant and relaxing about them even when they are very formal. It’s being there; it’s another world. And a good one.

The Garden Terrace Room

The evening celebrates the second annual flowering of the Garden’s magnificent rose collection. Today the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden has 4000 plants displaying more than 600 varieties of roses. The Garden has long been regarded as one of the most beautiful rose gardens in America, and the only one surviving in New York City that was designed by Beatrix Jones Farrand, the landscape architect.

The chairs for the evening were Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Biggs, Mrs. and Mrs. Harry Burn III, Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Johnson. This year they paid tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Davidson.

This is an important event for the Botanical. Tickets start at $1000. The proceeds help to maintain and build the Rose Garden collection, and support the curators’ care and development of one of the world’s premier rose venues. This event attracted 200 members of the Garden’s extended family and raised $575,000 to support the collection.

Ann and Charles Johnson with Friederike Biggs

Beth and Beau Taylor

Caroline Wamsler and friends

Chris and Grace Meigher

Charles and Deborah Royce

Coleman and Susan Burke

Dotty and Lionel Goldfrank

Maureen and Richard Chilton and friends

Gregory Long and Maureen Chilton

Mary Davidson and Ellie Naess with friends

Jean Burn and friends

Jeffrey and Diane Jennings

Kathie Moore, Coleman Burke, and Ellie Naess

Jeremy Biggs, Friederike Biggs, Jeanne Jones, and friends

Marvin and Mary Davidson

Peter Kukielski, Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden Curator

Richard and Maureen Chilton

Roly Nolen and Gregory Long

Jeanne Jones, Mary Davidson, Ellie Naess, and friends

Friederike and Jeremy Biggs

This past Sunday before more than a thousand guests at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, NYU Langone Medical Center and the Hassenfeld family unveiled a $50 million gift that will create a comprehensive pediatric hospital at NYU Langone Medical Center. The $50 million gift from the Hassenfeld family, led by longtime NYU Langone Medical Center trustee Sylvia Hassenfeld, spans three generations and underscores the family’s belief in both giving back and to children.

Patti Kim, Laurie Block, Sophia Louisa, and Olivia

The announcement was made during a festive celebration with over 1,000 children, parents and grandparents in attendance, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Barbara Walters, who served as the mistress of ceremonies at the family-friendly event.

The gift will help create the Hassenfeld Pediatric Center, a new 160,000 square foot state-of-the-art pediatric hospital on the Medical Center’s main campus on the east side of Manhattan. Integral to the design of the pediatric hospital will be all private rooms, making it the only pediatric inpatient facility in Manhattan to have this feature. Private rooms increase patient safety by decreasing exposure to infections, as well as serve to provide a private, supportive environment for the patients and their families.

Sylvia Hassenfeld, Barbara Walters, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Ken Langone, Alan Hassenfeld, and Ed Meyer

Lauri Perlmutter and Elizabeth Cohen

Ken Langone, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Barbara Walters

Sandra and Ed Meyer

Edward and Nancy Goodman

Jim and Susan Dunning

Elaine Langone, Alice Tisch, Sylvia Hassenfeld, and Barbara Walters

Dr. Nirav Shah, Catherine Manno, and Robert Grossman

Alice and Billie TIsch

Dr. Binkas Lebobids, Daniel Erem, Alan Hassenfeld, and Gabriel Erem

David and Sarah Fiszel with Leo and Henry

Ellen Block and Phylllis Mailman

Paul Porsberi, Laurie Block, and Ron Shaffer

This past Sunday night Ann Nitze held a cocktail reception at her Upper East Side penthouse for Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare With Amber Eyes. The place was packed with people who had already read it and wanted to merely pay tribute to the author for this wonderful book.